Food Blog | Openwork Johor Bahru

With a white & clean concept, Openwork Johor Bahru is one of those ‘hipster cafes’ that you wanna go ‘for the gram’. Wide open spaces and a fusion menu concept is what you expect when you go to Openwork for a meal.

Is it Halal?

Openwork is a non-halal restaurant - serves pork in a few of their dishes, so do take note!

Where it Is

Openwork Coffee Johor Bahru is located on a corner lot of a row of shops. It is pretty hard to get in and out of this area, given it is both narrow and confusing (the road for the row of shops is RIGHT BESIDE a main road). It is on the opposite side of the road of Bank Simpanan (PLEASE DON’T PARK ON THAT SIDE). But, basically that’s the rough location.

What it Costs

The mains are a little bit more on the pricier side. A main will generally go for RM17-RM23. Furthermore, I would say that the bowls of rice are REALLY small. (I would say it isn’t too worth it for the price). I personally used The Entertainer App (as usual, NOT SPONSORED/PAID to say this, but if you would like to see what deals you can get, click here!). What you can get is basically a buy 1 free 1 for a main (but they were slightly annoying in the sense that you can only use one deal per table - I have 3 to redeem for buying the yearly pass).

I also shared a gyoza when I came here, and yeah! The gyoza (you get 6) is worth RM12 and I would say it is still on the pricier side as well. They do have free water here though, so I guess that is a plus!

How it Tastes

First, the gyoza. It is a fried style of gyoza which seems a bit meh. I would say the pastry for the gyoza is actually quite nice, but the filling leaves me filling a little bit disappointed in the gyoza overall. But the sauce is pretty good, and you will see why I say that slightly later.

I had a salmon & dory | siracha sauce | bonito flakes | cured egg | yuzu rice combination (basically all in one). And it was very…. meh. The dish lacks a lot of flavour for what ingredients it has. I would say I could barely even taste the siracha sauce, and the rice just tastes really bland. The salmon was .. not that good, but I would say that I personally liked the dory in this dish.

A few of my colleagues had this too, and they ended up adding sauce from the gyoza (we asked them for another serving of the sauce for the gyoza XD), just so they can enjoy the dish more, so take what you will from that statement.

Suitable For…

The atmosphere. The food was pretty disappointing, so I would say I won’t really recommend the food here. The ambience is admittedly really nice though - with the mirror and the lights.

Star Rating

5.5/10. A solid meh. Kinda wish I can try a few more of the dishes. I had a small bite of their sliced beef and lao gan ma with rice dish, and whilst it was slightly better, I would still say it is definitely not worth the price they are selling it at. RM23 for a small bowl of rice and insufficient flavour makes me give it a confident thumbs down.